With more than two million page views and more than 4,500 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Should the scientists who evaluate
and score the applications for $3 billion in taxpayer funds be
required to publicly disclose their financial interests?

No, says the California stem cell
agency, despite concerns by the state auditor and the state's Fair
Political Practices Commission (FPPC) that date back at least six
years. The agency says that its governing board makes the decisions
on the applications – not the grant reviewers – and that the
members of the board fully disclose their economic interests.

However, last month the agency produced
a document that sheds new light on the issue. The document confirms
that the board rubber-stamps virtually all the reviewers' decisions,
going along with their actions 98 percent of the time. The board
exercised independent judgment on 28 out of 1,355 applications.

“(T)he FPPC believes that, under
state regulations, working group members (including grant reviewers)
may act as decision makers if they make substantive recommendations
that are, over an extended period, regularly approved without
significant amendment or modification by the committee. Thus, as
decision makers, working group members would need to be subject to
the conflict-of-interest code. This would mean that working groups
would be subject not only to the (public) financial disclosure requirements of
the Political Reform Act but also to the prohibition against a member
participating in a government decision in which that member has a
disqualifying financial interest and may be subject to the penalties
that may be imposed on individuals who violate that act.”

The auditor recommended that the stem
cell agency seek an attorney general's opinion on the matter, a
recommendation the agency agency summarily dismissed seven months later..

Then interim CIRM
President Richard Murphy, a former member of the agency's board and
former president of the Salk Institute, replied to the auditor:

"We have given careful
consideration to your recommendation and have decided it is not
appropriate to implement at this time. In almost three years of
operation and approval of four rounds of grants, the recommendations
of the CIRM working groups have never been routinely and/or regularly
adopted by the ICOC. Until the time that such a pattern is detected,
the question you suggest we raise with the attorney general is
entirely hypothetical, and is therefore not appropriate for
submission. We will, however, continue to monitor approvals for such
a pattern and will reconsider our decision if one emerges."

In the four rounds mentioned in
Murphy's response, 100 percent of reviewer decisions were
rubber-stamped by the board. In the other two rounds, the percentage
was 95 and 96 percent.

Currently, scientific grant reviewers at the stem cell agency, all of whom are from out-of-state, disclose financial and professional conflicts
of interest in private to selected CIRM officials. (See policy here.)
From time to time, grant reviewers are excused from evaluating
specific applications.

The CIRM governing board has resisted
requiring public disclosure of the interests of reviewers. The subject
has come up several times, but board members have been concerned
about losing reviewers who would not be pleased about disclosing
their financial interests. Nonetheless, disclosure of interests among researchers is becoming routine in scientific research articles. Many universities, including
Stanford, also require public disclosure of financial interests of
their researchers. Stanford says,

“No matter what the circumstances --
if an independent observer might reasonably question whether the
individual's professional actions or decisions are determined by
considerations of personal financial gain, the relationship should be
disclosed to the public during presentations, in publications,
teaching or other public venues.”

The latest version of CIRM's conflict
of interest rules are under review by the FPPC. They do not include
any changes in public disclosure for grant reviewers. In view of the
new information that confirms that reviewers are making 98 percent of
the decisions on who gets the taxpayers' dollars, it would seem that it is long past due for public disclosure of both financial and professional
interests of reviewers. Indeed, given the nature of scientific
research and the tiny size of the stem cell community, disclosure of
professional interests may be more important than financial
disclosures.

"The public trust in what we do is
just essential, and we cannot afford to take any chances with the
integrity of the research process."

Here is the CIRM document concerning
reviewers' decisions and governing board action. The table has not
been posted on the CIRM website, but it was prepared for last month's
meeting dealing with the Institute of Medicine's recommendations for
sweeping changes at the agency, especially related to conflicts of
interest.

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.